18.3.18

Trump attacks FBI as his lawyer calls for end to Russia probe

(FILES)
This file photo taken on January 10, 2018 shows US President Donald
Trump during a press conference with Norway’s Prime Minister Erna
Solberg in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC.Outrage
mounted on January 12, 2018 over US President Donald Trump’s reported
description of African nations, Haiti and El Salvador as “shithole”
countries, with the United Nations slamming his comments as “racist”.
During a Thursday meeting with lawmakers on immigration reform, Trump
demanded to know why the US should accept citizens from what he called
“shithole” countries, according to comments first reported by the
Washington Post./ AFP PHOTO / JIM WATSON

Donald Trump slammed the FBI as he hailed the firing of a veteran Bureau
agent as a “great day for democracy,” a move his attorney said he hoped
would bring an end to a probe into alleged collusion between the
president’s campaign and Russia.
Critics described the axing of Andrew McCabe the deputy of former
FBI director James Comey as a “dangerous” ploy to discredit the top US
law enforcement agency as well as the work of Robert Mueller, the
special counsel investigating Russian influence in the 2016
election.McCabe is a potential key witness in the Russia probe.
Trump on Saturday via Twitter blasted the alleged “tremendous
leaking, lying and corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, Justice
& State.”He also reiterated long-running criticism of the Mueller
investigation, terming it a “witch hunt” and saying that it “should
never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no
crime.”

McCabe job offer
Earlier, Trump’s personal attorney, John Dowd, told the Daily Beast
that he hoped Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would follow the
lead of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and “bring an end
to alleged Russia Collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss
James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt Dossier.”
Dowd told the Daily Beast he was speaking for the president. But in a
subsequent statement he said he had been “speaking for myself, not the
president.”
McCabe, who has endured a year of withering attacks from Trump, was
fired by the Justice Department late Friday, just two days before he was
to retire after 21 years with the FBI.
Critics say the firing is a step in Trump’s plan to engineer Mueller’s dismissal, potentially sparking a constitutional crisis.
Mueller is also examining whether Trump might have obstructed justice, including by firing Comey last May.
One Democratic lawmaker, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, announced Saturday
that he offered McCabe a job in his office so he can complete the time
necessary to retire with full federal benefits.
“My offer of employment to Mr. McCabe is a legitimate offer to work on election security,” Pocan said in a statement.
McCabe spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz was non-committal. “We are considering all options,” she told the Washington Post.‘War’ on the FBI
“Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women
of the FBI – A great day for Democracy,” Trump tweeted soon after the
firing.
McCabe denied any impropriety and said he was the victim of a Trump
administration “war” against the FBI and the special counsel.
McCabe kept memos of his interactions with Trump, US media reported
Saturday, adding that the documents could bolster his version of events.
Comey pushed back as well. “Mr President, the American people will
hear my story very soon. And they can judge for themselves who is
honorable and who is not,” he tweeted.
The Justice Department said an internal investigation had found that
McCabe made unauthorized disclosures to the media, and had not been
fully honest “on multiple occasions” with the department’s inspector
general.
“The FBI expects every employee to adhere to the highest standards of
honesty, integrity and accountability,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions
said in a statement.
Lack of candor under oath is a firing offense at the FBI, but the
politically-charged context of the move raised questions among McCabe’s
backers.
Former CIA chief John Brennan lost his patience with Trump. “When the
full extent of your venality, moral turpitude and political corruption
becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced
demagogue in the dustbin of history,” he tweeted.‘Not political appointees’
Trump, in an early afternoon tweet, belittled the media for its
coverage of the story, saying: “The Fake News is beside themselves that
McCabe was caught, called out and fired…”In a second tweet he again
denied any collusion with Russia.
Details of the inspector general’s probe were not made public, but it
involved the FBI’s handling of the 2016 investigation into Trump’s
election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump has repeatedly accused McCabe and Comey of protecting Clinton
from prosecution, including over her misuse of a private email server
while she was secretary of state.
The inspector general’s probe was “part of an unprecedented effort by
the administration, driven by the president himself, to remove me from
my position, destroy my reputation, and possibly strip me of a pension
that I worked 21 years to earn,” McCabe said in a statement. “It is part
of this administration’s ongoing war with the FBI and the efforts of
the special counsel investigation.”
But one law professor defended the Justice Department’s
investigators.”These are not political appointees,” Jonathan Turley of
George Washington University told CNN.
“They clearly concluded that McCabe misled them — and that he misled
them on one of the core issues they were investigating.” The White House
has shown mounting frustration with the collusion probe, as it focuses
ever more closely on the president’s inner circle.